THE ARMY BEFORE CHARLESTON IN 1863.
63
ri< %e about 240 yards in advance of the main work, where they had placedthemselves under such cover that they could not be dislodged by our lire orthe flank lire of the fleet, while that from their own guns in rear passed harm-lessly over their heads. An attempt to capture this ridge having failed, a fourthParallel was established 011 the night of August 21st, about five hundred yards111 advance of the third. From this point the ridge was carried [by the 24thMassachusetts ] at the point of the bayonet on the 26tlx, under the directionof Brigadier-General Terry, and the fifth parallel was established thereon.I'he resistance to our advance now assumed a most obstinate and determinedcharacter, being evidently under skillful and intelligent direction, while thefiring from the James Island batteries became more steady and accurate.
Over the narrow strip of shallow shifting beach between us and the fort, theTying sap was pushed forward from the right of the fifth parallel. An ingenioussystem of subsurface torpedo mines, to be exploded by the tread of personstalking over them, was soon encountered, and we learned from prisonersffiat they were planted thickly over all the ground in our front. But theI,Ul| es were a defense to us as well as to the besieged garrison, as they broughta sense of security from sorties which the enemy’s broader development andconverging fire would otherwise have enabled him to make with nearly everycondition in his favor. The sappers soon reached a point only one hundredyards from the ditch of the work. Beyond this our progress became exceed-lr 'g'ly slow and uncertain. Our daily losses were on the increase. The con-centric fire from Battery Wagner alone almost enveloped the head of our sap,^hile the flank fire from the James Island batteries increased in power andaccuracy every hour. To push the work forward by day was found to be im-possible, while a brilliant harvest-moon, which seemed to shine with moresplendor than ever before, rendered an advance at night almost equallyhazardous. Matters seemed to be at a stand-still. A sense of gloom anddespondency began to pervade the command, under the impression that allfihc expedients of the engineer had been exhausted.
In this emergency it was determined, as well to hasten the final result asfi> revive the flagging spirits of the men, to carry on simultaneously againstBattery Wagner two distinct kinds of attack: First, to silence the work by anoverpowering bombardment with siege and Coeliorn mortars, so that our sap-pers would have oidy the James Island batteries to annoy them; and, second,to breach the bomb-proof shelter with our heavy rifles, and thus force a sur-render. During the day-time the New Ironsides , Captain S. C. Rowan, was tocooperate with her eight-gun broadsides. These operations were activelye gun at break of day on the 5th of September.
Seventeen siege and Coeliorn mortars dropped their shells unceasingly intofio work over the heads of our sappers; ten light siege-rifles covered and^rvept the approach to the work from the rear; fourteen heavy Parrotts thun-ci'ed away at the great bomb-proof shelter; while, during the daylight, theew Ironsides , with the most admirable regularity and precision, kept ana hnost continuous stream of 11-incli shells rolling over the water against themping parapet of Battery Wagner, whence, deflected upward with a low